The Chapel was buzzing with end-of-the-school-year excitement this morning as the community gathered for one of the many traditions of Reserve, the Spring Academic Awards. There’s been a festive air on campus all week as seniors and PGs prepare for Commencement on Sunday and are celebrated by their teachers, peers and families. Today’s ceremony was in recognition of academic standouts spanning grade levels and from award bestowers across business, science, mathematics, the humanities, education, the arts and more. Department awards also were given, as well as celebratory awards and prizes in honor of beloved alumni and past faculty.
Associate Head of School Brenda Petersen opened the awards ceremony, conferring the first several awards, all of special significance to the school, and of course, the recipients. She congratulated the students on their growth and achievements and even allowed them to remove their Reserve blazers on the sweltering spring day. Head of School Suzanne Walker Buck P’24 joined Petersen in the distribution of awards.
Petersen said, “It is an irony that oftentimes some of our most meaningful experiences are the hardest ones we live through.” She talked about her experiences in the Peace Corps in New Guinea, and the mix of fear and deep pride that it engendered in her. She reminded everyone that accomplishment is not natural, and that even things that look easy are the result of hard work, “not coming from nothing.” The recipients inspire us, she said, to “put ourselves out there with the goal not to be perfect, but to be better than the day before.”
Sergeant First Class Ryan Tiura presented an Army ROTC scholarship in the amount of $38,000 to recognize a Pioneer’s leadership acumen, and confer a path to officership in the Army.
Other awards recognized student service in the community, underscoring Reserve’s imperative that students pay it forward and learn the importance of sharing time and talent with others now and always. Coveted and prestigious military appointments from the Air Force and Naval Academies also were conferred.
The full list of award recipients can be viewed here.
Please click here to read the award descriptions.
We are so proud of our hard working, disciplined and intellectually curious students. Reserve’s reputation for excellence and rigor is one of lore, and every year our Pioneers rise to the occasion and reinforce this longstanding characterization. Moreover, with their brightness, they propel the school to continue to evolve, innovate and meet them where they are, a place of brilliance and potential.
The Academic Awards concluded with one of the favorite rites of passage as the years pass at Reserve, the Moving Up Ceremony. “This celebration marks the honoring of experience and the passage of time,” Buck said. She read "Time Is," a poem by Henry van Dyke, which is etched on the sundial outside the Chapel and culminates with, “For those who love, time is an eternity.” Senior and PG students rise and are dismissed, onto the rest of the celebratory week, and the rest of their lives! Underclassmen clamor for their new, nearer to the stage Chapel seats and the rest of their Reserve experience. Congratulations to all Pioneers for an amazing year!
